


Keep on Loving You

by Strange_Archivist



Series: Songs for the Brokenhearted [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 20:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8814325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strange_Archivist/pseuds/Strange_Archivist
Summary: Mike and El years after she made her way back to Hawkins, there's still bullies to deal with and college applications to fill out, but the way they feel about each other hasn't changed.





	

“El? Whoa, El, what's wrong?” Mike asks, poking his head around the school library bookshelf to find her huddled in the back corner of the stacks, her head in her hands.

“Bad,” she says. Mike frowns. In the three years since her return from the Upside Down, her vocabulary had increased exponentially, and she had grown to be nearly as chatty with the boys and a few other friends theyd made together in high school, as they were with her. But Mike knew when she reverted to her old habit of short sentences and one word answers, it meant she was having a rough time. 

“Bad day?” he asks.

 She nods silently.

“What happened?”

 “Troy and Deanna,” she says, naming their longtime bully and his new head cheerleader girlfriend.

“Goddamnit,” Mike sighs, sliding down to the floor across from her, his back against the end of the shelf.

 “You know they're just shitheads, right? Troy's just never going to forgive you because you wouldn’t let him be a bully and Deanna just hates anyone who isn't a jock or a cheerleader. They aren't worth crying over. Besides, it's not like we'll have to deal with them forever. We'll all go off to college and have lives outside Hawkins after high school. They're all just gonna wind up staying here, drinking at the same parties together, trying to relieve their glory days.”

 Unlike the other times he's given her this spiel, the words don't seem to comfort her. In fact, she lets out a small sob.

 “Whoa, hey,” he says, leaning into her to take her hands in his. “What is it?”

“What if I don't go off?” She bursts out.

“What?”

“Mike, I know all you want is to go off to college and I think that's great, it's just, I don't know if I can do that too.”

“What? But, El, you're more than smart enough. Mr. Clarke said you could have even been on track to graduate early if you wanted.”

“No, I know, it's not that. I just, I worry about going off somewhere new. Somewhere that you might not be. And having a roommate, Mike, how will I handle a roommate? Especially if the rooms are really small like Nancy says they are. And, I still get lost around Hawkins sometimes, what if I can't find my way in a new place all alone? I can't do it, Mike. I can’t. I can't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

Mike’s eyebrows raise higher in alarm with each passing word. He knows things are really bad when she's talking this much and this fast, and crying on top of it all. She's liable to start-

“Hic.” 

And there are the hiccups, right on cue.

“Hic.”

“Oh, El,” he says, crossing over to sit beside her and wrap his arm around her. “Okay, just breathe.” He rubs her back while she takes a few deep breaths. “How long have you felt this way?”

“Hic. The beginning, hic, of the school year, hic.”

It's December now.

“What? How come you never said anything?”

“Hic. You were just, hic, so excited. And I, hic, didn't want to ruin it for you, hic.”

Great. Nice going, Wheeler, he thinks to himself.

“El, I don't want you to feel like you have to do anything you don't want to. It's just, that's the stuff my parents always tell me whenever I'm pissed off at this place, or Troy, or whatever. I thought I was helping.”

“I know. And I want to go. I- there's so much world out there and I want to see it, I do. It just…. feels so big to me and it's scary. And what’ll happen to us if you go away and I can't?”

They're Sophomores now, so any college is at least two years away, but Mike knows that answer won't be good enough for El.

“El, look at me.” She wipes a tear and fixes her soul searching gaze on him. “Nothing is going to happen to us. Even if I go somewhere far away and you stay here, I'll still talk to you on the phone at 3am when you have bad dreams. I'll talk to you every day and come back to see you every chance I get.”

“Really?”

“Of course!”

“Why?”

This isn't a question he thinks most people would ask. But then, El isn't like most people. He knows the right answer, but didn't exactly plan on saying it for the first time in the back of the library during study hall.

“I dunno… I…”

 

“Friends don't lie.”

Oh what the hell? he thinks, and kisses her, impulsive like that first kiss in the cafeteria. “Because I love you,” he whispers, pulling back. “El, I nearly lost it that year you were gone. I don't want to lose you again, not if I can help it.”

“Really?” she says, her beautiful eyes now nearly too damn giant to be believed.

“Really. I'm yours. For as long as you'll keep me around.” He stands and pulls her up off the ground and kisses her again. El leans into the kiss too, both pressing their bodies press against each other's, both letting the kiss linger longer than usual. And El feels for a moment that maybe doing some of the other stuff she's heard about, the stuff beyond kissing with Mike sounds pretty exciting.

She doesn't tell him that when she was in the Upside Down it was the thought of Mike that kept her going. The fact that she could sometimes feel him through the dimensions even though she was so, so weak. She doesn't know how to explain to him that he is so much more than her childhood sweetheart. Instead, she clings to him, trying to put her feelings into her actions, hoping one day she'll have the words to describe how much he means to her.

They pull back from each other, a bit breathless, and she takes a moment to enjoy the closeness of his freckles, his dark eyes with the dark lashes, and his soft hair. “I love you too, Mike,” she says. His smile gives her life. And she decides that for now, it's enough. She loves him because he makes her feel braver. She says, “And I want to go away, I do. I just, I need help. I'm scared.”

“I'll help however I can. I meant it when I said I'm yours as long as you'll have me. You're going to get so sick of me.”

She laughs. Then says, “promise?”

“Promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please review!


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